PELICAN WOMEN'S CHAMPIONSHIP

November 11, 2022

Gerina Mendoza

Pelican Golf Club

Quick Quotes

Q. Here with Gerina Mendoza after her first round here at the Pelican Women's Championship. Pretty good score out there today. What were some of the conditions like out there, and the best part of your game?

GERINA MENDOZA: The course is in amazing shape for what we just went through yesterday. It's in good shape period, but the greens are absolutely perfect and it was just playing really, really long off the tee. You get zero roll, so that it wasn't necessarily like we could just throw darts. You're still having to hit 7, 6-irons.

So for my game, I would say just really stuck to the process. Tried to really visualize the shots and kind of let the results take care of themselves. I putted really well today.

Q. Speaking of yesterday, what did you do throughout the day? Also how do you have to get back into like the playing mentality when you're thrown a curve ball, like a hurricane?

GERINA MENDOZA: Yeah, well, we did all our movie watching and my son is with me, so we did go out to the beach probably like 4:00, 5:00 just to see what it was like, and it was really cool just to be out there with him. We discovered sea foam, so he's never seen that before so he was gung-ho about sea foam even this morning when I took him to daycare, so I think there's a sea foam lesson they were getting today at day care.

So, you know, it's just another day. It's not like I've lost my golf game if I didn't play golf for 24 hours. So just took it as a day of rest and one more day to rest up. I'm getting old out here, so I need all the rest I can get.

Q. Last question from me. CME, Race to CME Globe. I know you're right outside of that 100 marker. Is that something you're thinking about, pushing for this week obviously, but how does that sort of affect your mentality?

GERINA MENDOZA: Absolutely not. I actually haven't even thought about it. I haven't looked where I was, so thanks for -- no, just kidding.

No, you know, it's just kind of those kind of things are out of your control. You can't control what the other girls are doing. Only thing you can control is kind of what you're doing and how you're thinking.

Like I said, just stick to the process and the results will take care of themselves.

Q. Some of the mechanical stuff of your game doesn't change when you don't play for 24 hours; how long does it take to figure out the new course conditions when the last time you practiced on the course it was playing one way and after a hurricane it plays another way?

GERINA MENDOZA: That's kind of what warming up is for. So this course is amazing. It dried out really, really well. I don't think I saw standing water at all, just around maybe some drains.

But you get the feel of it pretty quickly putting on the greens, chipping, hitting the range balls. The range is -- I would say the range out here is drier than the golf course.

But, again, that's kind of what you do when you prepare and you practice. It's not like when I prepare for a tournament I warm up, I'm not trying to find a golf game. When I warm up it's basically to warm up, like get a good feel for the day.

When you go putt it's not like I'm working on putting mechanics. I'm trying to learn the greens. Like what kind of speed are they rolling at. And then same thing when I go chip. How is the ball reacting especially when there has been a lot of rain.

It's not going to be a check. It's going to be a skip, skip check. So that's what you're looking for when you warm up in the morning.

Q. Last one from me. Any favorite or good movies that you watched yesterday that stand out?

GERINA MENDOZA: Well, our repertoire is Disney right now, so we did watch Trolls, which was good, and The Secret Life of Pets 2, so that was a good one, too.

Q. As you are chasing different things this week, CME and the top 100, what's the effect of 54 holes versus 72?

GERINA MENDOZA: It can go two ways. If you get off to a hot start you want it to be 54. If you get off to a slow start, you want it to be 72 so you have that time to make up.

Again, that's a result thing, and you kind of just got to take one hole at a time. And with the even course being softer conditions, I still think it's a very tough course. The greens are very, very difficult and you definitely have to get in the fairway and be on the correct side of the fairway, and then obviously into the greens it's not just shooting, throw your ball at the pins.

You definitely have to think your way around the golf course.

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